Is American Air Power on the Verge of Collapse?

Defence Insights ^ | February 2, 2009

[fremont_steve]

This think tank report states that an F-35 can’t get through the Russian Integrated Air defense. Uhm - the F-35 can carry internal stores JUST like the F-22, at which point it is likely stealthy enough to do the job just FINE thank you very much. They start carrying on external hard points ONLY after we have Air supremacy.

Look at the campaign during Gulf War I - F-117’s went downtown, but other systems were used to blow holes in the “integrated” air defenses of Iraq before the rest of the air armada (and that name really fit in this case) came through to do their jobs. There were Apaches that came in and did Nap of the earth to take out Radar sites, and Cruise missles with similar missions. Then finally you had wild-weasel missions for anyone that chose to lite up their radar. They didn’t live long.

Gulf War 1 was 99% conventional aircraft! This report is just hot air.

[NowApproachingMidnight]

[aegiscg47]

The thing that kills me about these kinds of analysis is that it is always one side of the equation. Yes, the Russian IAD is probably pretty good and with more investment will be state of the art. However, if we attacked it we would not use just manned fighters! UAVs would get the radar frequencies being used and pass them on to our jamming aircraft, Tomahawks would take out several sections, then HARMs and ARMs, special forces, etc., and by that time a good sized operating corridor would have opened up for whatever strike package needs to go in.

[pobeda1945]

Kremlin must decide on sales of S-300 to Iran - Rosoboronexport

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2178255/posts

[Tallguy]

Manned aircraft are a flexible weapons system. Once the attacker has command of the air, they can do other things — like supporting ground troops. SAM systems are counter-weapons. They are designed for certain pre-imagined scenarios. At times they can be very good. Good enough to blunt an attack. More often, counter-weapons are defeated by improvised tactics. Then it is back to the drawing boards for the designers.

All that being said, I think that manned tactical aircraft are nearing the end of their days. It may take a serious bloody nose for the USAF to come to that conclusion, however.

[CharlesWayneCT]

APA’s Dr. Carlo Kopp, who completed his PhD in radar engineering, simulated the radar signature of the F-35 and showed exactly how vulnerable it will be to the Russian radar systems and missiles that have emerged since the specification for the JSF was drafted over a decade ago. Lockheed-Martin has not publicly disputed Kopp’s findings yet.

I doubt there will be any public dispute that would reveal the american version of the plane's capabilities.

[Blood of Tyrants]

High speed, low cost decoys are the key to defeating the new air defense systems. Just run them out of missiles shooting at decoys and their systems are worthless.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Seems to me that any time Russian air defenses have been required to react to ACTUAL events they've failed in a major way.

You might tell that to all the American aircrews shot down over Vietnam, along with Francis Gary Powers and Rudolf Anderson, by Soviet SAMs.

[Badeye]

‘You saw what took place in a war with an untrained unmotivated army using the export version of old Soviet tanks. It would have been a different different fight if those had been Russian troops. ‘

Really? What, the rounds fired wouldn’t penetrate at 3,000 yards with almost perfect accuracy, because of the troops inside the tanks?

My point, which you are circumventing with this viewpoint, is the M1A1 Abrams far exceeded the ‘think tank’ white papers written BEFORE the Gulf War, by levels of Magnitude.

You know this as well as I.

[Badeye]

Remember when ‘the experts’ convinced themselves the Soviets had a ‘brand new tank’ which they classified as the ‘T-80’.

It was only later they realized it was just another version of the T-72.

[Badeye]

I’ve heard of that which you speak of here, and agree.

[Pietro]

I guess if we’re running thousands of sorties per week some are likely to be shot down by plain luck.

[Tallguy]

The “Think Tank” papers about the deficiencies of the M1 Tank were hopelessly out of date by 1991. The M1 was a ‘mature’ weapons system by then.

The Media was looking of a cautionary story back then. They didn’t care if the “consume by” date on the technical stuff was long expired.

[Yo-Yo]

I guess if we’re running thousands of sorties per week some are likely to be shot down by plain luck.

I'm surprised that A.A. didn't mention the F-117 that was shot down during the Kosovo War.

What he fails to mention during both Vietnam and during the Kosovo war, our aircraft used the same ingress and egress routes day after day, and in both cases the enemy knew when sortees were launched.

So if you know where to look, and you know when to look, you can hit just about anything.

[Thunder90]

Obama has talked about taking the current F-22’s out of service as not to “Destabilize” the current world situation.

[spetznaz]

Obama has talked about taking the current F-22’s out of service as not to “Destabilize” the current world situation.

Link please (or is this one of your usual outta-thin-air statements?)

[Thunder90]

The speech that Obama gave gives us hints at this

“I will not deploy new weapons systems”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU4sVQV3Lhk

[Tommyjo]

They didn’t. There were no modern SAM systems in Syria. The Israeli’s took the path of least resistance to get to an undefended target in the Syrian desert. Part of that route involved the use of Turkish airspace on egress and ingress.

The Israeli’s aren’t stupid. There is no magic button to press to disable an entire air defense system. The Syrians kept the nuclear site clear of any air defence systems so as to not bring attention to the facility. What you are relying on is the likes of Debka who gave Syria every modern Russian SAM system.

Maybe you would like to ask the Israeli’s pilot’s during Yom Kippur of how deadly an integrated SAM system is? Look at the losses the Israeli’s suffered to SAMs during that conflict.

[rmlew]

The T-72Ms were crippled versions built in Iraq, without newer armour and lacking the ability to fire the 9m119/AT-11 Sniper as the T-72Bs can. The T-72 has not been the high end Soviet/Russian tank since 1980. The T-80 is.
If a T-80 went against an M-60 Patton, which do you think would win?

[tanknetter]

This think tank report states that an F-35 can’t get through the Russian Integrated Air defense. Uhm - the F-35 can carry internal stores JUST like the F-22, at which point it is likely stealthy enough to do the job just FINE thank you very much. They start carrying on external hard points ONLY after we have Air supremacy.

Only a handful of the initial development F-35s have flown, its capabilities and limitation are almost completely unknown (and the serious ones will stay that way for a long, long time) and this place is making definitive-sounding claims ... based on what, exactly?